pampas grass is that a challenge? initially I laughed then had a look at some images, then laughed again, but I must say you got me thinking bigh.

It’s a spectacular plant known for its large tufting flowers… that is also classed as an invasive plant and noxious weed in New Zealand.

New Zealand has its own native pampas called toetoe (“toy-toy”), or sometimes ‘cutty grass’ by kids, due to its sharp abrasive leaves. It’s not classed as a noxious weed. Like flax, toetoe is an extremely useful plant in tribal textiles.

Very nice New Zealand flax plant and I like the gradiation in the leaf color. I’m in Southern California, and a couple of varieties of this plant were very popular in landscaping during the 80s. A cream stripe variegated, and a dwarf as well as the coppery/purple. The Pampas grass was popular in the 50s til 70s. A much longer narrow leaf with wider spread of plant, although I think there were a few dwarfs. The flowers were like large feathery plumes only in a creamy color and overall the plants in a several clumps were very nice for a soft privacy screen. It’s very flammable, so it’s lost it’s popularity. Many California natives are designed in nature to burn in order to propagate so I guess that is why we keep looking at imported varieties of a similar climatic zone. I did not know the leaves of Phormium were used as a fiber source. Always learn something new every day!

@Horo I have always liked experimenting with ray tracing, not just in Bryce, and have found myself staring at jam jars for far too long and to sometimes visualise the things around me as if they were made of nurbs or polygon mesh surely is not healthy.

@ Orboros The name Toetoe interests me I have researched it and experimented already, the plant is very busy therefore not sure about how detailed a mesh to use but there are other options with Bryce materials ie. transparency and possibly volume and a more simple mesh that gives the basic shape of the plant or parts of it.
Alas my knowledge is lacking on the material side but I understand the mesh and hope to come up with a suitable shape or shapes, I still think bigh is kidding though, and wondering if I might produce a multi million poly bush

@ IceScribe Thank you, it is interesting you mention the dates when these plants were popular in landscaping over there, when Pampas was suggested in this thread I immediately had images of the tall pampas grasses people had in the front gardens of their mock tudor semi-detached houses in west London during the 1960s and 70s.

As you can see, I have been busy, this is the first idea for the New Zealand Toetoe, the leaf blade stems anyway, there is a fair bit of work to do yet do not know how to start on the flower or panicle, the plant obviously changes throughout the seasons ,have seen some images with a tighter floppy look rather than candy floss that may be easier to model, it would help of course if I could look at a real one, I have not been to Kew Gardens The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew for a couple of years, maybe go for a visit.

Aiming to produce an Austroderia toetoe, there are 5 species of Native tall grasses in New Zealand.

As you can see, I have been busy, this is the first idea for the New Zealand Toetoe, the leaf blade stems anyway, there is a fair bit of work to do yet do not know how to start on the flower or panicle, the plant obviously changes throughout the seasons ,have seen some images with a tighter floppy look rather than candy floss that may be easier to model, it would help of course if I could look at a real one, I have not been to Kew Gardens The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew for a couple of years, maybe go for a visit.

Aiming to produce an Austroderia toetoe, there are 5 species of Native tall grasses in New Zealand.

good start
now about 5 to 10 stems reed looking in center with the flowers ( kind of like cotton candy ) on top

Just as a matter of interest here are some images of the flower heads showing the difference between Toetoe and Common Pampas grass. 2 & 3 are toetoe, 1 is common pampas. As can be seen the pampas flower is more dense and fluffier.

Ha , you like the look of it already then kiwi_gg, I want to make a sort of mix and match Totoe kit for Bryce instead of just the whole thing although am not sure quite which way to do it yet , I have seen that sometimes a Bryce object (.obp) when it is installed, comes in a few separate parts, I think it is done holding the shift key or something like that, I will check, but I want to complete it first
where in New Zealand is that beach??

The beach could be anywhere, probably the North Island, I pulled those pics off google. I could have driven to Waihi beach and taken some photos myself as it’s only about 20 mins away but I worked on Saturday so I had stuff to do around the house and if I had gone to the beach the fishing gear would have to go too, get the picture?!!

Cheers
GG

Edit to add. The colours of the toetoe leaves are absolutly perfect do not change them.

Thank you bullit35744, you are welcome,was trying to create a plant that could be used fairly close to camera, the model can be used without the pot and stuff so can be customised a little, as for its material experiment in the dte